All posts tagged RBS

An investor in front of an electronic board showing stock information at a brokerage house in Huaibei, Anhui province, May 12, 2011.

To the list of foreign banks with joint ventures in China, prepare to add Citigroup Inc., which signed a memorandum of understanding with a Shanghai-based firm Thursday. But as Dow Jones Investment Banker writes, though the Chinese A-share market is full of promise, it’s a highly competitive landscape that hasn’t exactly reaped huge rewards for frontrunners such as UBS AG and Goldman Sachs Group.

By Philippe Espinasse

The Royal Bank of Scotland’s announcement this week that it had joined the rather exclusive list of foreign banks trying to crack the booming market for underwriting in China merely points up the limited inroads made so far by most of the would-be entrants. If anything, the advantage tends to run increasingly in favor of domestic Chinese underwriters.

Asian bankers may have “won” in the global remuneration contest, but the word takes on a whole new meaning in a world of increasing regulation and scrutiny over banker pay.

As Nisha Gopalan writes in The Wall Street Journal, bankers who focus on China and Southeast Asia, particularly in deals, real-estate and equity markets, have been able to make the most out of shrinking bonus pools across the board.

What this means is that fewer people are getting paid more in bonuses, and more and more people are getting paid less, or even nothing at all. Traditionally, 10% of a bank’s underperforming staff would have gotten no bonus; this year, that number is closer to 30%.

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